Jupiter, FL (Dec. 4, 2009) - Dr. Nick Quintyne, Assistant Professor of Biology at the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University, joined five Honors College students at the 49th Annual Meeting of The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) in San Diego, California from December 5 – 9, 2009.
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5 HC students at San Diego conference
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The ASCB Annual Meeting, held at the San Diego Convention Center, brings together students and scientists in academia, government, industry, and higher education. The conference allows attendees to hear and discuss cutting-edge discoveries made in cell biology and to gain a broader view of research in the field. With between 7,000 and 10,000 participants each year, it is the largest cell biology conference in the world. As Dr. Quintyne said, “It’s basically five days of hard-core, intense cell biology and, at the end of it, your brain is so full that you come home and try to digest it all.”
There are over 100 scientific sessions and 3,500 poster presentations covering all disciplines of cellular and molecular biology. The students that Dr. Quintyne took to the conference this year presented their research during the poster sessions. “I’ve attended the conference with students for the past three years now; so this will be the fourth year that I’ve done it. I took one student in 2006, one student in 2007, and then last year, I took four students to San Francisco. This year, I will be going with five. All of them will be presenting their research at the meeting,” said Dr. Quintyne. “This means they will be disseminating their own work and illustrating the quality of research Florida Atlantic University does at the undergraduate level. The students will be presenting in the full poster sessions, so they will be responding to questions from the best names in the field. We will be treated as equals in terms of the research.”
Dr. Quintyne presented his own work on topics related to molecular motors. Students Laura Alsina and Lindsay McCullough discussed their research into molecular motor functions, Erik Raborn and Nisha Nagarsheth presented original work in the field of cell division, and Ericka Gold discussed her findings on protein purification. Dr. Quintyne concluded, “This is one of those conferences where you work hard all day, each day, and it’s not a vacation because you’re constantly being immersed in new discoveries. But if everything goes right you can also find a nice afternoon to explore the San Diego Zoo.”
Dr. Quintyne (middle) with students in San Francisco at the 2008 conference
byline: Tamara Howard |
